Reputation of undergrad school...

[Woots32]

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If anyone out there is thinking along the lines I am, they are probably wondering what possible good this thread is accomplishing. Granted, it's an interesting question, and some people probably have legitimate concerns about their particular school's reputation. But isn't it a little late at this point to do anything about it? If the bias exists (which i personally think it does, at least to some extent), there is absolutely nothing that any of us can do, since most posters here are probably either very close to graduation, or have already finished college. Why beat a dead horse?

Truth be told, U of Illinois was the only school I applied to for undergrad. (It had the easiest application. 😉 ) I probably could have gone to Northwestern, but my parents told me that if I went to a cheaper state school, not only would they pay my tuition, but might have some money left over for any post-grad degrees I might try for (cough-bull$hit-cough). So here I am! 🙂

If I knew then I would end up applying to med school, and how mind-numbingly hard it is to get in, I might have made different choices. I admit that I felt like an underachiever/tool when I was at my U Mich interview, and every person I talked to either went to an in-state school or one of the Ivies. But I know at least two of my classmates have been accepted there already - so there's hope for those of us who didn't go to one of the super prestigious undergrads! 🙂

That said - GO ILLINI!!!

 

[Deuce 007 MD]

I was just curious as to what schools are considered Ivies, any ways?

 

[snoopy17]

there are eight ivy league schools
in no particular order, the ivies are

1) harvard
2) yale
3) princeton
4) brown
5) dartmouth
6) columbia
7) upenn
8) cornell

 

[Thewonderer]

I don't quite understand why some people are that upset about their undergrad's "lack of reputation." All of the sudden, everyone wants to go to Yale or Stanford med??? If you have good GPA and MCAT from any school, you will get into an AMERICAN med school. Does it really have to be UCSF, Columbia, or Wash U med?

 

[Deuce 007 MD]

Originally posted by snoopy17
there are eight ivy league schools
in no particular order, the ivies are

1) harvard
2) yale
3) princeton
4) brown
5) dartmouth
6) columbia
7) upenn
8) cornell

So what criteria makes them Ivies? How long they've been around or something? George W. Bush went to yale and his and idiot. JFK jr. rip, but didn't he go to an ivy and failed the NY bar 3 times?

 

[exigente chica]

I also come from a no name 2nd tier undergrad and I am wondering if this is going to hurt me at all. I am applying MSTP, and if u look on the website most of the students are from big, prestigous schools...maybe a small school every five years or so?🙄

 

[lady bug]

Originally posted by pathdr2b
I'm an Alumnae of UF and I can tell you from my expereince after years of observing the medical school admissions game that outside of Florida, no one views UF as an exceptional university.

I've talked to admissions committee members from Harvard to Howard and not one "got excited" at the mention of my UF degree. Now the one I have from UNC-Chapel Hill carried so much weight with adcoms that I almost felt like the UF diploma didn't exist so much so that beyond the question of my GPA

UF is a great school, no doubt, but it's the kinda place that brainwashes students to think that everyone's gator wannabe. A lot of its reputation comes from its graduate programs and funding for research, where it has a definite edge over the smaller state universities. It certainly a big name school in Florida, but as far as applying to med school, I've seen UF students have no advantage over students from smaller schools. Besides, UF med school turns down so many UF undergrads that have done very well, its not even funny. Its kinda sad. I'm glad I chose to stay at home and go to the local university.

 

[S.c. Cdc28p]

Originally posted by Deuce 007 MD
So what criteria makes them Ivies? How long they've been around or something?

The Ivy League was first established in the 1940s by the 8 old schools in the East to standardize policies regarding their football programs. The schools are much older of course, with Harvard being established in 1636, making it the oldest college in the nation. The phrase Ivy League gradually refered to the schools themselves, not merely their football conference.

 

[Deuce 007 MD]

Originally posted by S.c. Cdc28p
The Ivy League was first established in the 1940s by the 8 old schools in the East to standardize policies regarding their football programs. The schools are much older of course, with Harvard being established in 1636, making it the oldest college in the nation. The phrase Ivy League gradually refered to the schools themselves, not merely their football conference.

Now I know where that comes from, thanks.

 

[DarkChild]

actually it comes from the four original schools in the football league. Ivy league comes from IV (the roman numerals for 4). the term was later extended to encompass the other 4 schools that joined...

Originally posted by S.c. Cdc28p
The Ivy League was first established in the 1940s by the 8 old schools in the East to standardize policies regarding their football programs. The schools are much older of course, with Harvard being established in 1636, making it the oldest college in the nation. The phrase Ivy League gradually refered to the schools themselves, not merely their football conference.

 

[MD2b06]

Originally posted by Thewonderer
I don't quite understand why some people are that upset about their undergrad's "lack of reputation." All of the sudden, everyone wants to go to Yale or Stanford med??? If you have good GPA and MCAT from any school, you will get into an AMERICAN med school. Does it really have to be UCSF, Columbia, or Wash U med?

I'll admit my undergrad, UF, doesn't have the best reputation. It's certainly not equivalent to that of other large public universities such as UCLA, UMich or UVA. Actually, UF used to be known as a party school, and to an extent, it still is which probably hurts its rep. However, I don't really have any regrets going there. I could've gone to a more prestigious institution coming out of high school (3.8, 1500+, high class rank), but I chose to stay close to home in the warm Florida weather. 🙂 Not to mention the cheap tuition. I didn't really wanna pay $120K for a college degree knowing that I'd be going to med school which is even more expensive. A lot of my friends said I was crazy for choosing UF, but I really didn't think so.

If I did anything wrong, it was to underestimate the difficulty of the courses at UF. I came in thinking that I was gonna be able to coast through a lot of the classes. What I soon figured out was that a lot of people at UF had done the same thing I did. They'd given up the high ranked schools for the same reasons I had. Since all of the pre-med classes were saturated with these individuals, it made excelling rather difficult. Those who say UF is much much easier than a lot of the higher ranked schools have no clue. There is no grade inflation in the pre-med classes at UF unlike at a lot of higher ranked schools. Quite honestly, many of the professors just will not budge even if half the class fails an exam. If I recall correctly, only 10-12 % of my bio classes received A's. And don't even get me started on the anal-retentive physics dept at UF. I'd be typing for days. Needless to say, my grades weren't the greatest.

I'll admit, it was intimidating interviewing with people from higher ranked schools. I recall at one of my interviews I was interviewing with applicants from Harvard, Duke, Hopkins, Northwestern and UCLA. 😱 I didn't think I had a snowball's chance in hell, but I was wrong. 🙂

My ugrad cost me abt $40K. My med school is costing me abt $140K. Perhaps UF would've shown me some love if I had gone to a higher ranked undergrad, but it's pointless to spend an extra $80K just to have a better chance to be noticed by your state school. I really don't have any regrets. It's truly moreso abt the person than the school they're from. Peace.

 

[Random Access]

Originally posted by Deuce 007 MD
So what criteria makes them Ivies? How long they've been around or something? George W. Bush went to yale and his and idiot. JFK jr. rip, but didn't he go to an ivy and failed the NY bar 3 times?

John-John went to Brown, I believe. And he did fail the bar several times...

 

[Random Access]

Originally posted by DarkChild
actually it comes from the four original schools in the football league. Ivy league comes from IV (the roman numerals for 4). the term was later extended to encompass the other 4 schools that joined...

Yeah, they tell you this on the tour at Princeton. I guess they want to remind you that you're at an Ivy League school. 😉

 

[S.c. Cdc28p]

Interesting that there are various versions of the history of the Ivy League. Below is one example:



Whence The Name "Ivy League"?

This article is reprinted from Columbia College Today with the permission of the editors and of the author, Robert Harron, Former New York City newspaperman and more recently assistant to the president of Columbia. Cas Adams, mentioned here, died in 1957.

Have you ever wondered how our American language grows? Sit still for a minute and I'll give you an example.

The time was Thursday afternoon, October 14, 1937. The setting was the sports department of the New York Herald-Tribune. Assignments were being made for coverage of the leading college football games of the week. The late George Daley, sports editor, and Irving Marsh, assistant sports editor, were making up the list.

To Stanley Woodward, even then a veteran and brilliant football writer, went the Pittsburgh-Fordham game at the Polo Grounds in New York. This was the game New Yorkers wanted most to read about, which was reason enough for Woodward to cover. He was then and is now one of the ablest writers the gridiron has produced in his years; and his years as a sports writer go back to about 1920.

When the other staff men got their assignments, Caswell Adams drew the Columbia-Pennsylvania game at Columbia's Baker Field in New York.

Now, Mr. Adams, who is in these days the erudite boxing expert of the New York Journal-American [Editor's note: Remember this was written in 1956], had no quarrel with either Columbia or Pennsylvania. Both, in his considered judgment, were and are splendid old institutions of higher learning. He was, however, able to restrain with relative ease his enthusiasm for football as played in that day by a number of teams representing the more venerable centers of higher education in the East. This was in the heydey of Fordham University as a major football power; and Mr. Adams is a Fordham man.

Briefly, Piquantly, without rancor, he expressed his views to the editor.

"Whyinell," he inquired, "do I have to watch the ivy grow every Saturday afternoon? How about letting me see some football away from the ivy-covered halls of learning for a change?"

He did not press the point. There was a Friday night boxing match coming up in Madison Square Garden, and he had an advance story to write. He forgot the matter.

But Stanley Woodward, at a nearby typewriter, did not forget. He had heard a new phrase. Ivy-covered? Ivy group? Ivy League?" These old schools of the East did not like leagues. They had long shunned the conference idea. Stanley like to ruffle them occasionally and chuckled when he did so. Why not call these colleges the "Ivy League"?

Woodward wrote the weekly football review for the Herald-Tribune on Monday mornings. It was a review read with care by football men, including and especially football coaches. I recall one coach who was accustomed for several seasons to inquire of Stanley each week what game he was to cover. The coach would then forego scouting arrangements for that game. He knew Woodward's Sunday story and Monday morning technical analysis would tell him and his strategists all they needed to know about any rival.

So a few days later, though not on the Monday morning immediately following, there crept unobtrusively into a Woodward football essay the phrase "...and in the Ivy League..." as introduction to a discussion of what was happening on the fields of the East's oldest colleges which, even then and without a semblance of formal grouping, were natural and traditional rivals. Set down alphabetically, they were, of course, Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Pennsylvania, Princeton, and Yale.

The phrase caught on. Other writers soon picked it up. Then football enthusiasts began to use it in conversation. Before long even some of the academicians began to adopt it. Few who used it knew, or even wondered, about its origin.

Now it has indeed come into the language. To opportunistic advertisers it is a phrase which carries the connotation of smartness in the wearing apparel of young Americans of college age. A national network radio show of some popularity made its own adaptation. To the high school senior choosing the school he hopes he attends there are two groups -- The Ivy and the others...

 

[Deuce 007 MD]

Originally posted by S.c. Cdc28p


Now it has indeed come into the language. To opportunistic advertisers it is a phrase which carries the connotation of smartness in the wearing apparel of young Americans of college age. A national network radio show of some popularity made its own adaptation. To the high school senior choosing the school he hopes he attends there are two groups -- The Ivy and the others...
[/i]

Ahh, now I really know. Not all mutagens are carcinogens, but all carcinogens are mutagens. Ivy doesn?t automatically mean super duper smart, but all ivies are really old schools with some, not all, smart people. Again look a G.W. Bush he is an idiot from Yale, who wants to got to war.

 

[Random Access]

Originally posted by Deuce 007 MD
Again look a G.W. Bush he is an idiot from Yale, who wants to got to war.

Not to nitpick, but he's an idiot from Harvard B-School too. 😀

 

[pbehzad]

Originally posted by Deuce 007 MD
Again look a G.W. Bush he is an idiot from Yale, who wants to got to war.

So i guess you are anti-democratic. Attacking Iraq will allow democracy to prevail in the middle east. Also do you want saddam to eventually get nuclear weapons, i sure as hell dont, but then again im not you. Maybe after all, attacking iraq isnt a bad idea.

 

[siempre595]

It absolutely matters where you do the undergrad work. At the same time, committees are looking at so much more than just that, such as how hard you worked no matter where you were at school. I go to a school known for the tough pre-med program, and I know people in last year's interview pool who spent a good portion of their interviews discussing why they chose their undergrad school and how they took advantage of the opportunities it afforded them. No committee throws out an app because it doesn't say Yale or Harvard. But it sure isn't going to hurt.

 

[soopa]

Originally posted by pbehzad
So i guess you are anti-democratic. Attacking Iraq will allow democracy to prevail in the middle east. Also do you want saddam to eventually get nuclear weapons, i sure as hell dont, but then again im not you. Maybe after all, attacking iraq isnt a bad idea.

are you crazy? do you think it is just a walk in the park to introduce democracy in the middle east.......think again? let's don't attack iraq until we have the entire world behind us. democracy to prevail in the ME........not that easy.

 

[siempre595]

Originally posted by BananaSplit
<<5) Wash - 79>>

Wow! You guys must really like your own students!

We love our own students!!! WOOOOO!!!

 

[Random Access]

Originally posted by pbehzad
So i guess you are anti-democratic.

Okay. So your statement in no way follows logically from what Deuce said. Not that I care to state what I think about going to war, but at the least, that sentence does not follow logically.


In any case, a large part of the real reason for this war is Shrubya wanting to get revenge for when Saddam tried to kill his Pops. That's the primary reason; let's be honest here.